If You Can't Beat 'Em
by Theodora Helena Miller
Summary: Rosabel Stalon can't escape the government agency called the Ranger Corps that's gotten her mother killed and hired all her friends. And, well, if you can't beat them-join them.  ModernFic   Retelling of my previous story entitled "Ranger's Apprentice"
1. Prologue

**Hello, folks!**

**To my loyal RAfic readers, I know I've already written and posted this storyline… but I decided to rewrite it and make a modernfic. The difference is how the plot works out, the entire century in which it happens, dialogue, and even certain people's relationships to each other. Same old loveable but angry and much bitterer Rosabel, who will resume joking once she figures out her life (and wins Will from his dead girlfriend)!**

**For new readers I hope to attract, you'll have to bear with me (and Rose) until she reaches kick-butt modern Ranger status similar to her kick-butt canon-style Ranger status from my previous RA fic.**

**For any inconsistencies, I apologise, I am pushing together a non-fanfiction story about a spy named Rosabel and her group of spy friends, a modern fanfiction I began a while ago, new content, and the previous fanfiction. Trust me, I'm more confused than you are.**

**Also, my new favourite affectation as a writer is to lecture **_**and**_** tell a story chronologically, so get used to scrolling up to see what happened before.**

The hardest part of life is finding your niche. If we were all the same, we'd _still_ find ways to categorise ourselves somehow. And we're _not_ all the same.

That's what high school is like, actually.

I mean, there are the good-looking ones that just burst with confidence. Maybe the way they shine is what makes them attractive or maybe they shine because they're attractive. Maybe it's a mixture of both.

Among the most stereotyped are the athletes. The majority of them seem to be jerks who travel in packs with great shape and that general lack of stress or acne, but it actually improves their personality to be so well-exercised.

Then there are the stuck up ones who claw their way to imaginary thrones just to call themselves fat or bisexual or ugly to get attention. And because of that, despite the fact that people pretend otherwise, they aren't attractive—not really.

Of course, those aren't the only social groups.

One of the best kind are the spazzes. They wear mismatched clothes and talk loudly and have talent and are always funny just because of their spontaneity. Shy just isn't in their vocabulary.

Perhaps the bottom of the food chain is the kind that stays close to their parents. They dress like their Mother still puts clothes out for them every night, their grades are impeccable due to no social life whatsoever, and they bring their own lunches. Half of these dedicated kiddos become millionaires, and the other half never leaves the nest. It's all about ambition.

Others with low social rankings are the loners. Maybe they're just outcasts, for behavioural or learning or physical disabilities, for reputation, for some long forgotten mistake, for having ideas detached from the mainstream. Sometimes they're independents, or they're too shy and skittish and soft spoken for other groups.

I'm shy and I have loud opinions that aren't mainstream, but the loners won't take me because I'm actually quite talkative once I get to know someone.

My improvisational skills are limited to "what to do in case of an emergency" and "what jokes to make while under pressure," and the spazzes are disappointed to find I've got very little potential otherwise.

My grades are good and I wear matching, out-of-style clothes, but everyone knows I'm not controlled by my mother.

The athletics department is yet another area where I'm good—I can hit a home run, throw a curveball, make a touchdown, put that spin on a football, win a race, run a marathon, ice skate, do lots of crazy stuff on uneven bars and springboards and high beams—but I'm not interested in organised instances of sporting activities.

I'm not the kind of girl to lie about myself just to get attention—hell, I don't even wear make-up. Nor am I the kind to push other people down and use them as stairs (unless there's a lifetime supply of sweet iced tea or chocolate covered coffee beans to be had at the top of said pile of people; then you wouldn't be able to stop me) or to let people push me down. The preps just avoid me.

Confident isn't something that describes me either. I don't walk into a room full of people by myself or in front of other people.

If my father had his way, I'd be self-assured and sporty—maybe dating a nice football player, walking to practice in a softball uniform and a blonde ponytail.

Mother, on the other hand, would've told me to do what I loved. It was good advice, except climbing trees and playing pranks and reading books wouldn't get me a social group.

I barely took two steps into the hallway we shared with the eleventh graders before half a bottle of Gatorade got dumped over my head.

"Welcome to Araluen High, loser." The eleventh grader holding the empty bottle sneered.

His friends were nodding and laughing like it was all one great big joke and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. My cousin, Gilan, had taught me how to fight when we were at the lake with Aunt Macy and Uncle David, but even the ability to throw a few good punches doesn't help much when the kids screwing with you are twice your size and move in packs of three or four.

The small-time bullies, like this particular bunch, never massed like the popular kids. They got along on size and fear, so they didn't hold sway over large groups like the charming ones could. But a redneck jerk and his two buds stuck together because it was a dog-eat-dog world.

The preppy ones, the cheerleaders and their jocks, were able to lie through their teeth with lip-gloss smiles and still sound sweet and innocent enough to convince you they were your friends.

But since it was my very first day, I had yet to individually distinguish the rednecks from the jocks from the nerds from the geeks. All I knew was what I'd learned about school life back at Phoenix.

They were still laughing. I, however, was not in the mood for laughing. We were out of Midol and I had just been transferred to a new school. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

"Ooh! We've got an uppity one here." The ringleader said. "Do we stand for that here in Araluen?"

But I beamed over his shoulder. A familiar figure materialised had behind them. "Morning, Uncle Halt!"

"Is there a problem here, Alda?" Halt asked quietly.

He wasn't really my uncle, but an old friend of Uncle David. Every family gathering—whenever Mum had decided to invite her brother over for brunch—had included Halt. He didn't have a family around, from what I could tell. Halt was a legend, even though his real adventures were top secret RC stuff. CNN had named him a national hero after a daring rescue on 9/11. He'd been working for some government agency (no one but us knew which) and he'd risen to the top. Well, almost the top: his best friend, Crowley, ran RC. Now he'd "retired" and became the world's scariest AP US Government teacher.

Alda & Company scattered. Halt looked at me for a moment as if he wanted to repeat his job offer, decided against it for some reason known only to him and his wife (who knows how to work him even better than his various friends), and then vanished into the crowd.

"Thanks!" I called.

He raised a hand halfway in acknowledgement.

I checked the slip of paper again. Locker 713.

Weaving quickly back and forth through the crowds—I'd had plenty of practice with that sort of thing in the past two months, while I kept my head down at the boarding school and tried to simply function without human interaction—I managed to reach the 700s. I quickly spotted my locker, but there was a mini-crowd blocking the lock.

A girl with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail was talking to a girl with shoulder length dark brown hair in front of lockers 711 and 712. The long-haired girl was wearing a t-shirt (Go Gators! It proclaimed) and jeans, but the other had a pleated grey-and-pink plaid skirt with a white short-sleeved dress shirt and a pink vest.

It was a foreign concept for me, but it appeared social groups here mixed.

That idea was squashed as I looked around. Clusters of giggling girls wearing neon and skinny jeans and Aeropostale carrying Prada bags, groups of guys in their team jackets, the geeks wearing gamer tees (LEEROY JENKINS!); no one else seemed to be mixing.

The pair moved over as I approached. "Hi." I said shyly, opening the locker.

"You're the new girl…" The pleated-skirt girl said. "I'm Bessie, but everyone insists on Beth or Elizabeth. Lizzy, however, is a no-no. Rosabel, right?"

I corrected her automatically. "Rahz-uh-bell."

There was one person in the whole world that didn't get this particular correction: Will Treaty, adopted son of the aforementioned Halt O' Carrick, was the only living person with permission to call me Rose, including my best-friend-for-life-and-maybe-then-some/long-time-foster-sister Marissa. I don't like being called Rose or Rosie or even my name pronounced like the flower. "It's not Rose-uh-bell, it's Rahz-uh-bell" was a constant refrain of mine.

But that doesn't stop people from mispronouncing it repeatedly. A distant great aunt didn't get the message in the past fifteen years, and every time Christmas or my birthday rolls around, I get something rose. Rose jewellery, rose perfume, rose incense, rose-patterned clothing and accessories, bouquets of the blasted things, and even a pot of yellow knockout roses. She was responsible for the rose-themed bedroom sets whenever I got a new bed, for the mauve bathroom stuff with rose shower curtains, and even for rose-patterned crib bedding. But back to the current time.

Her friend just nodded quietly, and then realised we were both looking at her. "Oh! I'm Adrianne." She said, smiling.

"I hate to interrupt, Beth," A familiar voice said, "But I believe I'm the student guide here. Hey there, Rose." Will was grinning, leaning against the locker marked 714.

The special privilege of calling me Rose was due to two things: one, I was totally in love with everything about him—brown eyes I can get lost in, a slight ironic smile that spoke of mischief and sarcastic humour, dark curly hair, and sun-browned skin. Two, he was among the few people who knew how I felt—what it was like to lose something that was such a huge part of you that you feel like the walking dead afterwards.

I guess the story behind all _that_ starts with Will's painful past.

His father died in Afghanistan and his mother, who had always been sickly, passed shortly after he was born. He was put through the foster system before his first birthday and ended up with the family of an old army friend of his father's. A girl named Alyss, whose parents died in a car crash, and a boy named Horace, whose parents died in 9/11 when he was still pretty young, was placed in the same foster home. They were raised as siblings to the biological son, George.

When they were thirteen, something happened and they were all forced to find new homes. Two friends took the four in: George and Alyss went with one Pauline Sawyer while a man by the name of Halt Carrick took in Horace and Will. They weren't separated, though. Pauline and Halt were high school sweethearts and even thirty-odd years later they had feelings for each other. About three years ago, they got married and it seemed the six of them would live happily ever after—especially since Alyss and Will started going out.

But I'm forgetting something important, the part where_ I_ was thrown into the storyline. Gil, my Mother's kid brother who's actually just two years older than me, knew Will and the rest of the Carricks from school.

Halt was an intelligence officer in an elite group known as the RC (it's supposed to be a shortening of The Ranger Corps, but Gil was quick to call it the Random Cops) and they started training from a young age. Namely sixteen. Well, about two and a half years ago, Gil and Will were both recruited, along with Alyss and Horace. George was in too, but he was a techie.

That was when Mother and Father sat me and Marissa down and explained very carefully that Gil was now working for the government and we couldn't tell anyone.

Halt came to drop Gil off one day and he had the cute little orphan trio (that's Horace, Alyss, and Will) on the porch with them. There was a full-on rainstorm and they were all plastered with rain. Mother answered the door.

Next thing I knew, our family dinners on Sundays were always interrupted at some point by one of the RC members coming in and sitting down to eat. That included the entire family.

Even though it was hopelessly girly, I blushed. "Will! I didn't, um, expect to see you so soon." I stuttered finally, managing to escape those brown eyes under the pretence of opening my locker and carefully setting up my stuff. "So, you've already met them?"

"Yeah, I think everyone knows Elizabeth. Sorry I wasn't at the doors to greet you; your dad is too punctual for me. I'm sorry to see you've met our less… conventional… welcoming committee."

"I'm not." I said grimly. "I'll be here to welcome them one day, and it'll be something besides Gatorade that I dump on their heads."

"Try vinegar." Elizabeth said, equally grim.

"I was thinking blood—Stephen King style." I replied, grinning.

Someone tugged on my hair. The faint scent of heather nectar and the tiny fingers told me exactly who it was.

"MARISSA!"

She laughed as I spun around and hugged her. "I'm glad you're back."

I'd been away from home for years. Marissa had come to live with me five years ago while her grandparents travelled the world, and it hadn't taken long for her to start dating _my freaking cousin_, Gilan. Missy, as I nicknamed her, had always been my little sister. In fact, she's three months my elder and not at related to me.

I have a biological elder sister named Cassandra. She's beautiful—her blonde hair falls in a curtain of gold, her green eyes are truly green, her skin is perfectly clear, her style is pretty and feminine but functional and modest, she's graceful and knows etiquette like a good little Christian girl should, and she portrays her grief with quiet tears and a sudden need to volunteer to help others. She was junior prom queen and is currently dating Horace.

Horace was less interested in me and more interested in my perfect big sister Cassandra, but Marissa (that's the foster sister) and I were always close to Will and Alyss. George was usually tied up with work and when he did come, he sat between Will and Alyss and stayed quiet until he found an argument to get involved in.

Those were definitely my fondest memories. This whole big group of us were clumped around a table, laughing at Will and Halt argue or Gil's jokes while George and Mother and Pauline talked politics. Horace and Cassie would be flirting and Horace would answer Father's questions promptly, making him laugh most of the time. The light-hearted spirit was contagious.

And then the worst happened: the Rangers took down a higher-up in a huge criminal empire and the rest of them slipped away into the night. Mother got sick. The doctors were flummoxed, but Halt knew what was happening. It seems said criminal empire had scientists working on a neurotoxin that had only one cure, which only grew in one place. Alyss volunteered to get it.

It sounds like a daring spy adventure novel—right up until Alyss vanished. Last anyone heard of her was a phone call to Will, one she made near the Cliffs of Moher, in Ireland.

The cops said that a gust of wind combined with slippery ground caused the fall. They said she'd fallen, hit her head on a rock, and drowned. Their little rationalization was that it was an accident and they'd never find her body, so there was no point looking beyond a half-hearted boat trip to the area.

In the meantime, the coroner who examined my mother diagnosed her with a rare virus that affected the ability of her nerves.

Bullshit on all accounts.

It was now cropping up everywhere, and yes, everyone died eventually. Some medicines helped prolong the life expectancy, but in the end it was a deadly disease reaching the status of epidemic.

We had her funeral that summer. It rained. The memorial service for both Alyss and Mother was a small family affair, just the Carricks and the Stalons and Gil.

Will, George, and Gil had spent the next year or so trying to hunt the bastards down. I helped them, even though I was years too young at the time, until something snapped. I woke up from some revenge-fuelled daze and found myself at _her_ grave in yet another rainstorm. Not Mother's, I'm still not ready to face that particular block of stone. The empty grave where Will had buried a photograph: Alyss's memorial.

We had a lovely chat, Alyss and I.

The result of my chat with my long-time crush's dead girlfriend was that I couldn't be consumed by revenge. Somehow I glued the remaining pieces back together and scraped a life together, and he'd transferred me to the same school as everyone else—I'd gone to a private school while I was recovering from my revenge spurt, on Father's orders: he wanted me to mix with other kids like me or something like that. More rich, over-privileged kids with attitude and no idea what the hell real pain was.

Her grandparents came back shortly after my nervous breakdown and took her back. Supposedly it was to keep her from grieving too much, but I think it was to keep her away from my bad influence. The irony was that she joined the Corps after I begged her not to do so.

But there was no time to dwell on all the matters I just filled you in on. If you're going to read my little tale, you're going to have to keep up.

"Me too. Well, I've got to go to Theatre. Don't suppose any of you…?"

"Chorus." Beth said, motioning to herself, Will, Adrianne, and Missy. "See you around?"

"Um, yeah…"

I watched them walk away and wondered about the fact that the girls all seemed to be from different social groups. Will was a bit of a recluse himself, only hanging out with his siblings, Gilan, and apparently Beth and Adrianne. Needless to say, I was suspicious.

X-x-x-x-X Several hours later X-x-x-x-X

"Will." I said, grinning tiredly as I swung my book-bag on and walked out towards the parking lot. "How's it going?"

"Good, you?"

"You know, the usual. All my friends are spies, I'm supposed to be a spy, and yet I'm not."

"How's Tony?"

"Anthony." I corrected. "He's fine, but he definitely isn't happy that you drive me home."

Will had dropped me off at my place after school one day—a Friday night (I came home from Norgate on weekends and he picked me up, since dad was…otherwise occupied/avoiding the house and his delinquent daughter) and I'd offered him a cup of coffee while he waited for Gil and Marissa to come home from their date. When Anthony showed up to pick me up for _our_ date, he'd flipped out and demanded to know why Will was there.

"Where's Missy?"

His ears turned pink, but he didn't answer with anything but a "Trunk's unlocked, Rose" as he stepped into the black sedan, which had tinted windows that just so happened to be bulletproof. That was Will-speak for "she's in top secret RC training".

This is where my story really starts, so I guess it's my responsibility to welcome you to my life. Feel free to laugh at the stuff I get knee-deep in, but know this: I'll see you in hell.

Lots of love,

_Rosabel Stalon_


	2. Join 'Em

Ah, the news. It is the job of the newscaster to give you a titbit or headline and tell you "we'll have more after this break" or some variant thereof. Then you'll find some not-so-important news and mention this story once more in a teensy bit more detail, before telling you that you must wait for the next commercial break to end before you can find out what's going on. They drag this out and then give you a boring story they've twisted to sound interesting just to keep you watching. This is so brief you find yourself wondering "why did they push it back so far" and then "is there more next" until they come back and restart the loop of stories and "live" coverage from their anchors that you've seen at least one before, just to let you know they're quite done being helpful.

And then once you've given up on the damned channel, you find there was a tantalising bit of real news that you missed in favour of a repeat of some crime show to escape the boredom of the not-so-boring-news-just-for-today and start watching it all over again.

After a month of living on my own, I started leaving the news on in the background until I got tired of it. On one such occasion, the Bones episode I'd been watching had turned out to be the one I'd seen the last half of last week and I switched back to the news just in time to hear there'd been another outbreak. The neurotoxin had been released in Japan, it seemed.

"Another outbreak started overseas yesterday, more than decimating the populations of—"

I clicked off the TV. I knew I should be grieving human loss or something like that, but the fact remained that if I grieved one minute for everyone who died I'd never stop grieving. "We get it, CNN, everyone's dying." I muttered.

"They're just trying to earn some money." Gilan said from the doorway. He'd randomly broken into my house. He does that a lot, since Father refused to give him a key when we changed out the locks and doorknobs for chrome (Father like modern stuff like that, but mother had insisted on brushed bronze)—though Mother absolutely adored her nephew, he was kicked out after Gil and my father got in a huge row over Mother's death. "It's hard to do that in the Great Recession, and they're hoping to provide for their families after the toxin comes here."

"Fat lot of good it'll do them when infrastructure collapses and leaves them with fistfuls of fancy paper."

"Pessimist." He accused.

"Realist. So, how's the Corps? Halt still want me to join?"

"At its usual. Halt is stubborn—especially about you joining. Will wants you to join too, you know."

"I didn't ask."

"You wanted to. Look, Rosabel, he knows you like him and you know he likes you. You guys are totally over thinking this."

"Don't be ridiculous. I got over that stupid crush years ago. Now I'm dating that kid from my old school, Anthony."

"Hmm."

My phone rang and I held up a finger to keep his lecture at bay. I flipped it open and read the screen: _Anthony_. I really didn't want to talk to him, but I had a lecture waiting for me. Better him than Gilan, who was still worried about me being reclusive and not being his usual joking self.

"Sup, Anthony?"

"I've told you, it's Tony."

"Whatever you say, Anthony."

"Is your cousin there?"

"Yeah."

"Leave the room. Say 'wait, what was that?' as you go."

"Wait… Can you repeat that Anthony? The living room has terrible reception." I said, leaving the room and climbing the stairs. I didn't want Gil to get involved in other areas of my love life.

"Very good. Why haven't you called me? Where have you been?"

"I didn't realize you were my father and my boyfriend." I replied sarcastically. "I'll get home by curfew, alright?"

I could practically hear his anger building through the static filled pause. "Were you with that Will guy? I told you I don't want you anywhere near him." He asked finally.

"He's Gil's best friend, of course he's been around. We hang out. I'm not cheating on you. It just so happens that Will and I's best friends are dating. It's less awkward for us to hang out than to watch them make out."

"I don't believe you. Why are you lying to me?"

"I'm not!"

"You'll regret this." He vowed, and then I heard a click.

He'd hung up on me!

I dialled his number. He picked up. "Hello?"

"There was a weird sound on your end, kind of like this:" I pressed the end button and grinned. Okay, it was childish, but allowing him to start and end the phone call allowed him to dictate the terms of the next one. It's a deeply rooted psychological—okay, okay, I wanted to hang up on him.

I threw my phone at the wall, kicked the door to my room closed, and flopped onto the bed with my eyes burning. High school sucked, but no colleges wanted me even if I tested out right now, not with my record. I'd been in and out of ISS for years. I'd pranked everyone in our small town at least once.

Anthony was a guy I'd met as a freshman at the city boarding school and my rebound (okay, not exactly rebound, since I've never actually dated anyone else) guy for Will. But there's no breaking up with Anthony Wilson. It's like dating an anaconda, the more you struggle the tighter he wraps around you.

I poked my pillow moodily. I was almost seventeen and I still hadn't done anything with my life. Ambition isn't enough to make things happen. Well, not unless I wanted to do what I really wanted to do.

I sighed, sat up, went over to my phone, and dialled a number I'd had memorized for years.

"Halt O' Carrick." A gruff voice answered the phone.

"Is that job position in the Corps still open?"


	3. The Crew

**Dear Reviewers,**

**Muha4: She wasn't literally talking to Alyss. She was talking to herself to reason through it all. And the grandparents are Marissa's.**

**Eva: For God's sake, read the beginning sis. As I said, this story is a compiling of multiple stories. Especially the spy story I sent you and the others, which is just a non RA based redo of my other fanfiction.**

**Love Ya'll.**

Unlike most crime shows, the government doesn't have top notch technology for its agencies. That's only for the politicians to have. As I'm sure you're quite bored with my lectures, I'll get on with the RC headquarters.

"Where am I?" I asked quietly. It looked like a freaking cabin, not a top secret base.

"Your new lodgings." Halt replied shortly. "No more questions."

"Where _are_ my new lodgings? The tint on the car you drive cannot be legal."

One of the guys wearing headphones and studying a screen stood up, and I recognized him as he pushed the headphones back and grinned at me: Will.

"Welcome to Seacliff—that's what we call the base. Nice to see you again, Rosabel."

"Good to see you too, Will."

"We're not here to chat. Move it along." Halt snapped.

I kept walking.

"There's your bunkroom. You'll decide the sleeping arrangements with your roommates."

I wondered who my roommates are, then shrugged. Who cared?

The door swung open, incredibly light for being solid stainless steel.

"Rose!" I found myself being hugged tightly, pinning my arms to my side. I couldn't see the face of who was hugging me, but the ballet flats and cute flowery skirt with a crocheted cardigan over a brightly coloured t-shirt told me it was Marissa.

I glared at her. "It's not pronounced like the flower, ergo my name cannot be shortened to the name of the flower. I believe I told "

"Love you too." She said. "I had no idea you'd accepted! Why didn't you tell me yesterday? Last I heard, Halt hadn't convinced you. What tipped the scales?"

"He didn't try very hard, being Halt and all that. He told me I had a job if I wanted it, and I told him yesterday after school that I wanted the job. You know he'd never talk long enough to make an argument."

"Oh. Well, this is the bunkroom. We've got a full crowd. Anne Russe, Annabel Lee, Elizabeth Jackson, Adrianne Adams, you, and me. Three bunk beds."

"Hello!" A girl with long, straight black hair said, waving.

Four girls were sitting on one bunk bed—two that I recognised were on the top, one (Elizabeth) lying down with her feet in the air and her chin resting on folded arms and the other (Adrianne) lying down and looking up at the ceiling. One girl was hanging from the bars that kept the top mattress up and nodded my way before doing another four-limbed pull-up. The girl who'd greeted me was sitting in the drawer under the bed.

Marissa helped me out. "Rosabel, that's Anne in the luggage drawer. Annabel is the one doing sloth pull-ups. You remember Adrianne, she's—"

Adrianne sat up to look at me, hit her head on the ceiling, and collapsed backwards. "Ow…" She groaned, rubbing her forehead.

"Clumsy." Elizabeth said.

"Nice one, Adrianne. Hello, Elizabeth."

"You really should call me Bessie. Allow me to actually introduce myself; I'm a mercenary-for-hire and poison specialist. I'll kill you in your sleep, so watch out."

"She's lying about killing you. I think." Adrianne added thoughtfully, glancing at her.

I sat down on Marissa's bed (I could tell by the lime green sheets) and stared around at them. "What do you all do? I mean, Halt is going to have me take an entrance test to find out what I should do."

"Well, I'm a recon agent, of course." Marissa began. "Adrianne has field experience, but she's better at tech stuff than even Will. Elizabeth wasn't lying about the poison thing, for once. Anne is a field agent."

Annabel bounced up. "_I_'m an assassin! I'm trained to kill in like a _thousand_ different ways and—"

"One of them is talking people to death." Elizabeth interrupted again.

Halt walked in without knocking. "Everyone in the briefing room, stat." He said, turning and leaving just as unceremoniously.


	4. Of Briefs, Boxers, and Ex Boyfriends

**Chapter 3:**

**Of Boxers, Briefs, and (Ex) Boyfriends**

I looked around the conference room and leaned casually against the table—it was furnished like it hadn't been redone since wood-panelling was in style. It was like being in a wooden crate.

"You know, 'debrief' is a pretty dirty concept once you think about it. It could be used so many different ways." Anne said.

"But what about guys who wear boxers?" Elizabeth asked. "I mean, you can't use it in reference to them and—"

Will stuck his fingers in his ears and started humming loudly.

Annabel jumped into the conversation. "Speaking of briefs and boxers, has anyone else noticed that 'brief' is a synonym for short?"

The humming went up an octave and Gilan found something very interesting to tell George.

Noticing Gil, Elizabeth tapped him on the arm lightly. "Anything to add to the discussion at hand, boys?" She asked.

"Yes, surely you know Halt's taste in the matters." I added, struggling to keep a straight face. "I mean, you've pranked more Rangers than I have and Halt did train you."

Gilan froze.

Bessie picked up a bowl of grapes from the conference table and offered it to George. "Grapes?"

I'm not sure who cracked up first, but when Halt came in all of the girls in the room were laughing.

"Ahem." Halt said.

We recovered and took our seats, which were rolling spinny chairs. I had a sudden image of us racing down the main hallway—the main hallway was a lot wider than the skinny corridor between the tech room and the lodgings, since politicians and higher-ups who visited RCHQ came down the hallway to this spacious conference/briefing room—in spinny chairs and made a mental note to add that to my bucket list.

They were super comfy memory foam seats, and I wasn't the only one to prod the padding just to watch it spring back.

"Why are we in this briefing room, anyway?" Will asked. "Sir." He added, grinning.

Halt nodded in acknowledgement of the correction. "That's what I thought you meant. Now, we are in here because we were pinged, and we need—"

"Pinged?" I interrupted.

George piped up, "Something fell into our radar. A cell phone company reported being hacked, and one of the accounts that were hacked was in our computer."

He glanced my way just once, but it was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

My mother's killers flashed into my mind. "Why was the account in your system?" I asked suspiciously.

"It's you." Halt said grimly. "Someone hacked your account and listened in on our phone call."

"Coincidence?" I asked hopefully.

"It could be, except something else happened."

"Which was?"

"Someone you called previously went missing." George said.

"Anthony." I groaned.

Marissa spun her chair around to face me. "You're still talking to Anthony?"

"Um… Kinda sorta still dating him?"

"WHAT? You told me you broke up with him."

"If you're quite done." Halt said dangerously.

I ignored him. "It's not my fault, I've tried to call it off." I said.

"Enough, you three." Halt said, ("Wasn't me!" Marissa squeaked) slamming his coffee cup onto the table. "Now, we've brought in the best we've got for extractions. We're a little short on funding here, so you guys are going to have to go low-tech."

"By ourselves?" I asked.

"Just you new recruits, our expert, Will, and Gilan are going. George will be following along with camera and audio."

Crowley stuck his head into the room. "He's here. Halt, you're needed—Area 53 is having a crisis with the radioactive turkeys and…"

I couldn't hear the rest of the conversation, since Halt closed the door that led to the tech room, but not for lack of trying.

"Radioactive turkeys?" I asked the room at large.

"Just last year it was the glow-in-the-dark elephants." Will commented. "They found an underground ivory harvesting business in Africa and apparently some scientist was working with phosphorus in an attempt to make the trunks grow larger and faster, but something went wrong and we had a whole bunch of them on our hands. Area 53 deals with recombinant DNA and unusual animals, so they got shipped over there."

"RC deals with ivory harvesting?"

"We deal with everything." Someone said.

My jaw dropped as the latest addition walked into the room. Out of all the people in this universe that could possibly have turned to the harsh, secretive world of a high-ranking government intelligence officer, _him_?

"This is our FBI extraction specialist, Agent—" George began, gesturing towards the man.

He had short brown hair, light eyes, and a joking smile that faded as he saw his ex and the girl who'd beat him up for breaking said ex's heart.

Marissa and I interrupted at the exact same time and completed the sentence for him. "Austin Jackson." We said, one bitterly and the other ruefully. Two guesses who was who.

Beth tilted her head. "This the dickhead you mentioned, Missy?"

"You'll have to excuse her," I said, since I had no beef with him now that Marissa was okay and dating a guy I whole-heartedly approved of. "She's a pathological liar who chooses the worst times to be brutally honest."

"I'm not working with him. Nuh-uh. Not happening. No way."

"Missy, it's in the past. People have to move on when they lose lovers."

I tried not to glance up at Will as I spoke.

"Easy for you to say."

"Oh, really? I—"

"Enough!" Will yelled over our steadily rising voices, sounding remarkably like Halt.

Gil stepped in. "Anthony's in trouble because of RC. I don't like him. But it's kind of our fault and we owe him this much. Now let's go. Will, you'll take Austin, Beth, Rosabel, and Adrianne in the sedan. Everyone else can come with me."

**X-x-X-x-X**

"Austin… _Austin_. A government agent? _Austin_?"

The subject of my disbelief, who was sitting right behind a certain super hot spy driving the car, grinned and rolled his eyes at me.

"Yes, Rosabel. No matter how many times you say my name, I won't suddenly go 'oh, my mistake, I totally forgot that I'm _not_ an FBI agent'."

"You were voted most likely to become a stand up comedian, and you're an FBI agent?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, I'd love to hear it."

Will's hands tightened on the steering wheel as I leaned on the middle console and looked intently at Austin while waiting for him to speak.

"Rosabel, it's not safe for you to sit like that."

"Yes, those little green monsters are quite deadly." Elizabeth said softly from the middle of the backseat.

I resisted the urge to flick both Will and Bessie off and instead returned my attention to the former. "Since when do you call me Rosabel?" I asked.

"Just face the front. You guys can chat back at HQ."

"Envy is such an unattractive trait in a man." Elizabeth added.

"Elizabeth!" Will and I said in perfect unison.

He yanked the car out of drive, slamming us all forward. "This is where you get out, Austin. Beth, go with him. Rosabel and I have to go in the basement. You'll go in the front door. Gil and Adrianne will be going in the side door, with Anne, Marissa, and Annabel through the loading bay."

I waited for them to leave (Beth was telling him some BS story about a kid in second grade named Austin that she strung up from the monkey bars with his own belt) and then looked over at Will as he slowly went around the corner.

"Anne, Marissa, and Annabel? They're going to get themselves killed. You can't honestly tell me that you expect those three to be an efficient team."

"Well, they're with Henry. He's my age, kind of quiet but brilliant. We just recruited him from another sector."

"Henry and Anne? Be careful, he might chop off her head."

"Haha." He said, rolling his eyes.

"You're being a butthead. And by the way, I'm at perfect liberty to flirt with whomever I like. I _am_ single, after all."

"What happened to still dating him?"

"Eh, it's over the minute I save his sorry excuse for a life. Why do you care, anyway?"

He pulled the keys out of the ignition. "Listen, Rose, I—"

The radio came to a static-filled form of life. "Halt's rather annoyed, so hurry up and get in." George's voice squawked.


	5. Setting Up a Set Up

**To all those who've reviewed so far: sincere thanks for the words of encouragement.**

Something was off about this warehouse thing. If the person hacking into my phone knew what I'd said to Halt, they knew what I'd said to Anthony, a conversation that provided an excellent chance that I wouldn't even care enough to save Anthony. There hadn't even been a ransom note o anything.

George was jabbering away about the surveillance video showing Anthony coming in this way. I could see footprints in the dust on the floor, and drag marks. It certainly looked realistic. I crouched down and examined them.

The prickling of a gaze against the back of my head told me Will was intently watching me. I took out the wire and listened intently for any sounds whatsoever. Nothing. It was eerily silent. In fact…

"It's a set up." I said suddenly, straightening and walking over to him so I wouldn't have speak so loudly. "Anthony's not here."

"What?"

"He wears this ridiculous cologne. It's a non-negotiable for him—he puts it on every day. George swears he's here, but he clearly isn't, which means—"

"Maybe—"

"Shut up, Will, I know it's my initiation test. Stop insulting my intelligence."

He sighed, but before I could grin triumphantly and tell George to stop blathering on through the earpiece, a gunshot rang out.

"Who was issued a gun?"

"No one. Rosabel, stay put. That isn't supposed to be part of the test—I swear no one was issued a gun."

"Then why are we standing here?"

"Hang back, I'll call for back-up."

I rolled my eyes and pulled his firearm from the holster at his hip—initiation test or not, I did not walk into a dimly lit warehouse unarmed. Totally not getting into the ever-so-cliché cop show situation where I got taken hostage and had to wait for the good-looking hero to save me. If I was going into an unstable situation against my partner's orders, I was going in armed.

"Rosabel!" Will hissed as I stalked away. "I'm serious; this is going to blow your chances of making it in."

I didn't even hesitate. Okay, so not visibly. "Yeah, well, my sister is in here."

"Rosabel, wait up!" He said, and I heard him jog quietly to catch up.

"What, Will?"

"Gilan's in here too."

"Guess it's your family too."

And it always had been. Alyss had always been closer to Pauline, while Will stuck with Halt's company usually. My mother had taken in Alyss, George, and Will (Horace, too, later on) from the start like they were Gilan's siblings rather than his friends and colleagues. I'd noticed, however, that Will out of all of the orphans had responded most to the maternal affection.

I glanced over as he took out his extra gun. Trust a Ranger to carry multiple weapons—if the Coast Guard's motto was Semper Paratus, the Ranger motto would be Dum Victus et in Tartare, Paratus (roughly: while alive and in the afterlife, prepared).

We moved into the middle of the warehouse, where there was a clear area for unloading flats. Something was off. My instincts were screaming for me to go in guns blazing. But there was a potential for crossfire involved.

"I'll go this way, you go around the shelves." Will ordered

"But—"

"Please."

I sighed and set off around the shelf as quickly as I could while making no noise whatsoever. Damn those pretty brown eyes and the _please_. I already couldn't say no. He didn't have to rub it in my face that he was irresistible.

Everything about him was perfect. He was just tall enough for me to wear boots around him, just broken enough to be a beautiful sort of broken like stained glass, and—

"Rose!" His voice broke into my reverie, panicked.

I abandoned my attempt at silence and sprinted around the corner. A man with horn-rimmed glasses was standing behind Will, hand over his mouth and a syringe in his hand. Why wasn't Will moving? What was in that syringe that was so terrible?

My focus left the silver glint of the needle and focused on the man's face. He looked familiar.

"Don't move." The man ordered.

I squeezed my eyes shut in reply, concentrating on files I'd read. Then I realised where I'd seen his face. "YOU!"

"Let me go and nobody gets hurt."

"A bit late for that." I snarled. "You engineered that neurotoxin that's killing everyone."

"This neurotoxin," Dr. Richard Anderson replied, nodding to the syringe.

My vision blurred over and my knees went weak. "Okay." I said slowly. I needed to make a flippant comment, where was my sense of humour? I concentrated on what Gilan would say. Nothing. But Halt, on the other hand… "Dammit, Will, how did you even get caught?"

He was annoyed enough by this random subject change to get a bit flustered. "Never mind that. Put the gun down now, or—"

Will suddenly rammed his elbow into his solar plexus, and Dr. Anderson doubled over in pain. I allowed myself a moment of relief before I realised Will was freaking out. He hid it well as he picked up his gun and moved a safe distance away, but I knew him too well.

"You shouldn't have moved, kid." Anderson wheezed.

"He only injected some of it." Will reported.

"Dammit!" I said again, levelling the gun at Anderson. "What. Is. The. Antidote?"

He snorted derisively. I fired, catching him in the shoulder, and moved to stand over him as he collapsed. "The antidote?"

The stubborn bastard shook his head, and I kicked the wound. He cried out, but didn't answer. "The antidote!" I snarled, crouching beside him.

"Azaor."

"Don't lie to me. You made a strand of the toxin resistant to the flower's anti-venom."

"Old… Strand." He gasped around the pain.

"I don't believe you," I hissed.

But the man's eyes were sliding closed as the pain got the better of him.

I ran to Will's side and lowered him to the floor as the first seizure hit. We were swarmed by other Rangers—"Who was shot?" I asked dully. "No one, though it was a close miss for Annabel." Halt answered—and Missy and Gil pulled me away.

"Sh, sh." Gilan kept saying,

"I'm not staying still and watching Will die!" I snapped.

"We know," Marissa retorted. "That's why Beth is going to get the helicopter."

"What?"

"We're going to Ireland, aren't we? To find the flower and bring it back? Of course, it'll be dangerous. If it's too dangerous for your likings…" Marissa half-grinned at me.

I glared. "You know I'm going."

Gilan nodded in satisfaction, uncharacteristically grave. "Excellent. I can't come. Someone has to pacify Halt, and believe me when I say he'll need it once he realises where you've gone." He said.


End file.
